It’s an average night so far. We have a larger order for a specific time, around 4:00 pm or so. The order consists of somewhere around eight pizzas and ten pounds of wings. A woman picks up the order. Everything is good but she calls back about three hours later.

Customer: “I picked up my order and my wings and pizza are cold!”

Me: “All right, I can help with that. Okay, I have the order pulled up and it seems like you picked your order up about three hours ago. Did you just start eating the food now?”

Customer: “Yes, but that shouldn’t be a problem!”

Me: “Okay, well, our policy states that if you are unhappy with your order for any reason we can remake or refund your order provided that we get at least half of it back. Other than that, I cannot offer you anything else.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous. My food is cold! And the wings are overdone and slimy! We already ate all the pizza and some of the wings, so I wouldn’t be able to bring at least half of it back. You’re making it seem like you think I’m lying to you!”

Me: “Well, our wings are baked not fried, and we put the sauce on before we cook them, so some people don’t like the way they come out and that’s fine. I do not at all think you’re lying. I truly believe that if you wait three hours to eat your food that it will be cold. If you have at least half of the wings left, I can give you a refund on the wings, but that’s about all I can do.”

Customer: “Okay, I’ll bring them back up there, but I’m not happy.”

Me: “Okay, no problem. We will refund it for you when you get here.”

After a while, my shift ends. I let the closing manager in charge know what’s going on and what to do for her. She comes in after I’m gone and will not stop complaining to the closing manager about it, exclaiming that she wants a full refund and more. Unfortunately, he gives her a full refund to get her out of his hair. This isn’t enough for her. She emails the owner of the business and claims that I treated her terribly and that I acted as though she was lying, and he gives her a gift card for the full cost of her order. So, she receives a refund and gift card. She then writes a review on our social media site.

Review: “The wings are baked, not fried. They were very slimy and the pizza was cold and overcooked. When I called to let them know, they made me feel like I was lying and making it up. They told me that in order for them to do something, I had to bring food back which I did because no one ate it; it was awful. It was our family Christmas, and that’s what our dinner was, and it got ruined. They did give me a full refund, but I won’t be back and if you’re looking for good wings, this is not the place.”

The owner said he was very disappointed in the way I handled the situation and that he couldn’t believe it was me at first as I’m always friendly and fair with the customers. Of course, she keeps coming back.

Back in the mid-1980s, a friend and I frequented a certain sub shop across the street from a shopping center. There were three key reasons we went here: 1) at the time, it was the only sub shop that was open on Sundays in that neighborhood, which is the day we were typically in the area, 2) they used very high-quality meats and ingredients, so the food here was quite delicious and high quality, and 3) their prices were very reasonable.

Initially, there were no problems. But after a few months, a guy started working there every Sunday. He was a college student who I swear would score a minus on an IQ scale. These are just a few of his, shall we say, shortcomings.

We had to be alert to be sure that what we got from him was what actually we ordered. For example, if I ordered a chicken breast sub, I might get turkey or ham, or one time, a meatball, which I fortunately noticed just as he started making it. If I asked for no tomato, I had to watch him to be sure he didn’t put it on anyway. He also could not make change to save his life; electronic cash registers were just reaching their peak in popularity among retail stores, but the owner of this place still had the older mechanical ones, where the staff had to figure out the change in their head. For example, if my meal came to $4.50 and I gave him a five-dollar bill, it would literally take him a good sixty seconds to figure out that the change was fifty cents, and this happened every… single… time.

One of the more idiotic things this employee did occurred one day when I ordered a large turkey sub. For sake of explanation, let’s say that a large sub was $5.00, a medium was $4.00, and a small was $3.00.

Me: “I’ll have a large turkey, with lettuce and pickles, please.”

Employee: “Sure thing. Oh, sorry. I forgot we ran out of the large sub rolls. Do you want another size?”

Me: “Ah, yeah, okay, I’ll have a medium, then.”

Employee: “Sure thing. Oh, you know what? A medium and a small together equal the size of a large. Do you want to do that?”

I agreed at first, but remembering his knack for screwing things up, I asked him an important question first.

Me: “Oh, thanks so much. That sounds good.” *Pauses* “Oh, wait. How much would that be?”

He turned and looked at the menu board above and behind him, and he took a few seconds to figure it out.

Employee: “The small is $3.00 and the medium $4.00, so $7.00.”

Me: “Sorry, that makes no sense. You said they are equal in size to a large sub.”

Employee: “Yeah.”

Me: “Yeah, so why are you charging me $7.00 when a large sub is only $5.00?”

Employee: “Well, a medium and a small together cost $7.00.”

Friend: “Are you seriously going to charge him $2.00 extra because you’re out of the large sub rolls? That is plain silly. At your suggestion, he is still getting the equivalent of a large sub, with the same amount of meat and so forth, but yet you’re overcharging him $2.00? Come on, man. Can’t you just think about that and see the obvious logic?”

At this point, I was practically banging my head against the counter at the absurdity of this guy’s lack of reasoning ability, logic, and even common sense.

Employee: “Well, it costs what it costs, you know what I mean?”

Me: “No, I don’t. You are the one who suggested it and even told me that they are the equal to a large size; it’s not my fault you are out of the large sub rolls. You suggested the alternate as a solution. It’s not like I demanded an unreasonable solution; you brought it up, not me. I shouldn’t be penalized for accepting your reasonable suggestion. I mean, why is this such a difficult concept for you to understand? If you’re going to charge me more than a large size costs, why are you even bringing it up in the first place?”

Employee: “Yeah, but I don’t want to get in trouble with the owner, you know, by giving away two subs at less than the menu says they should cost.”

I was completely frustrated at this point.

Me: “Honestly, geez, that’s just not going to happen. The owner can’t possibly be that stupid. I mean, really. Apparently, you have no clue about making the customer happy, a practice I’m sure the owner would have no problem with you doing.”

Employee: “Well, they cost $4.00 and $3.00, so I have to charge the $7.00 for both of them.”

Me: “Geez. You know what? Forget it. Just give me a medium.”

Employee: “Okay, so that was a turkey, right?”

Me: “Yes, with lettuce and pickles only, please.”

My friend and I looked at each other and just rolled our eyes at the total cluelessness. My friend ordered the same thing. We would have gone elsewhere, but the only thing open in the area on a Sunday back then was a [Fast Food Place] which we weren’t interested in. We were also really baffled that someone actually hired this guy. I mean, every week there was something beyond ludicrous he’d do.

I tried to call the owner during that week to complain, but he was impossible to find or get ahold of. He was never on site and never seemed to be in his office. He apparently owned several other retail businesses and was the epitome of a hands-off owner. 

Sadly, this type of thing went on for over a year until, finally, another sub shop opened across the street, basically putting this place out of business within only a few months.

I work at a grocery store and we are normally open eighteen hours a day. I normally work nights because I prefer it, so I’m always part of the closing shift.

Today is Christmas Eve. We normally close at midnight, but we closed today at 10:00 pm. We had forty people in the store at 9:45, so we were forced to lock the doors at 9:50. I was outside gathering all the carts, and my God, so many people were coming in the last ten minutes and fighting with my manager over the fact we closed the door early.

This normally always happens at midnight. People come at 11:55 and we deny them. What made tonight different is just the number of people cussing and trying to force their way in. It got to the point where customers started fighting with each other — the customers that defended us and the ones that were complaining.

We want to go home; it’s Christmas Eve. We literally were open from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm. Why come at 9:55 and fight us about it?

I didn’t end up leaving until 10:45, and my managers are still there closing everything. People have no idea what we actually go through. It’s ridiculous. People see the closing time and take it as a personal challenge to come a few minutes before.

A lady comes in on Christmas Eve looking for a specific item. I don’t remember what, but it’s some oddball thing.

Coworker: “Ma’am, we don’t have that in stock. We can order it for you, but it definitely won’t arrive before Christmas. It is Christmas Eve, after all.”

Customer: *Screaming* “How can you not have it in stock?! You’ve ruined Christmas!”

My coworker responded in the most dispassionate voice imaginable:

Coworker: “Just call me the Grinch, ma’am.”

And then he turned to the next person in line. She looked stunned for a moment and then just turned on her heel and left.

It was Christmas Eve. I was working a ten-item-or-less, cash-only register back in the days of typing in eight-digit codes instead of scanning. It was twenty minutes before closing on Christmas Eve.

A woman came through my register with a full shopping cart of clothes. I remember ringing thirty-eight pairs of socks. My manager was bagging for me and kept muttering:

Manager: “Keep calm… keep calm…”

I got it all rung up and — you guessed it — she paid with her credit card.

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t handle a credit card at my register. This will all need to be rung through at the service desk.”